BEIJING, May 14 (Xinhua) -- China launched a national online education platform to facilitate the continued learning of its 180 million middle and primary school students who have been confined to their homes amid the novel coronavirus outbreak.

Jointly launched by the Ministry of Education (MOE) and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on Feb. 17, the free learning platform covers the 31 provincial-level regions on the Chinese mainland.

Nearly 2.1 billion visits had been paid to the platform's website as of May 11, said Lyu Yugang with the MOE at a press conference Thursday.

The platform has been upgraded to further enrich its resources, which feature 10 sections including studying courses, epidemic prevention education, moral education, mental health education and classic literature.

China postponed the start of the new school semester, as part of its epidemic control efforts, and students turned to online courses for about three months to continue their studies.

But, as the epidemic subsides in the country, a growing number of regions have resumed classes. More than 100 million Chinese students have returned to schools, accounting for 39 percent of the entire student population nationwide, from kindergartens to universities, the MOE said at Tuesday's press conference.

As school classes are returning to normal, more efforts are needed to further incorporate the use of information technology in teaching, Lyu said, stressing the importance of online-resource sharing to narrow the gap between urban and rural education and improve the quality of basic education.